-In the USA
"Poverty in the United States is cyclical in nature with roughly 13 to 17% living below the federal poverty line at any given point in time, and roughly 40% falling below the poverty line at some point within a 10-year time span.[1] Most Americans (58.5%) will spend at least one year below the poverty line at some point between ages 25 and 75.[2] There remains some controversy over whether the official poverty threshold over- or understates poverty."
don't know if you trust wikipedia, but i do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States
13 to 17%, that's interesting.
-Now in the Netherlands, a country that is viewed as quite socialist with its health care benifits, unemployment aid, nationalized institutions, etc.
"The combination of a moderate increase in unemployment with improved purchasing power, among other things as a result of lower inflation, will have a favourable effect on estimated poverty rates in 2009. According to all poverty definitions, the percentages of poor households will decrease, to 6.8 percent (low-income threshold)[...]."
http://www.cbs.nl/en-GB/menu/themas/inkomen-bestedingen/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2008/2008-086-pb.htm
an estimate for 2009, so of course not too precise.
however in 2006:
"The low-income threshold is based on the level of social assistance benefit for a single person in 1979, when the purchasing power of this benefit was at its highest. The threshold is adjusted yearly for inflation, so that a fixed purchasing power is maintained.
According to this low-income threshold, 623 thousand of the 6.7 million households in the Netherlands (9.3 percent) were living in poverty in 2006."
same source.
if you don't trust this source, well it's from the cbs, centraal bureau voor de statistiek, the dutch official institution that the statistics that have to do with governing our country are collected, edited and published. not trusting this body would basically mean not trusting our government.
but hey... the US 13-17% against the Dutch 9.3% to and estimated 6.8% (from 18 December 2008). i don't know, but it seems like the netherlands is doing better on the poverty side, even though both countries are developed, western countries, except one is just more capitalistic and the other more socialistic.
so i'd conclude from this that in this case the socialistic country did better.
@Einstein
Bahrain: what's your arguement about bahrain? you just stated the huge difference between the rich and the poor, but you haven't told us what this has to do with the quality of people of Bahrain. I guess it sucks for most people, but that's a guess.
comparing USA to north korea: nice comparison as well, if you forget Kim Yong-Il being a terrible diplomat and all the sanctions against North Korea by basically every country in the world except for China.
south korea is great. can't say anything against that country 
. same thing for Taiwan. they're both awesome. but on the other side (the socialist side) we got Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, hmm... some nice countries as well right.
about comparing the USA to Zimbabwe: oh wow, that's a bad comparison. Zimbabwe is a 3rd world country first of all, and well, in most countries in Africa it's hard to do things right, especially in Zimbabwe. Of course, Mugabe isn't the best leader either.
about mexico: where does almost all the drugs from mexico go to? oh right, the USA. explanation for the drugs problem? i'd say so, same cause as in Colombia.
EDIT: cleaned up a li'l.
) i'd say Treebeard (3446).
...